The response to arguments about self in Python is "explicit is better than implicit." In a discussion at Pycon Brazil, I realized that we do need self in the body of a method, but being forced to place it in the argument list is redundant. I'm not actually expecting it to change, but I want to try to establish that this isn't a dumb argument.

Not only are basic collections (arrays and associative arrays) tightly integrated into the core language, but arrays provide some sophisticated functional programming support. This article also introduces the creation and use of shared libraries and the basics of prototypes.